


i'll be your gift

by alykapedia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 4 + 1 things, M/M, ice adolescence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 04:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17460608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alykapedia/pseuds/alykapedia
Summary: “He’s amazing,” he whispers, eyes never straying too far away. Caught like a moth to a flame. As if Viktor was the North Star and Yuuri is hopeless, helpless against his pull. “I’m going to skate on the same ice as him someday.” Yuuri says, promises, a truth that he’ll wear on his heart in the years to come.(Or: Yuuri Katsuki's adolescence on the ice, as told by five birthdays.)





	i'll be your gift

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for the yoi movie zine and mostly written bc everyone else was like,,,making viktor content (which is cool, you do you) so i had to step up and be the one to make and provide the yuuri content for me and my friends lmao
> 
> this was a collab with pickle in the zine and she made [a super cute but also super pAINFUL illustration](https://twitter.com/picklestpickle/status/1088318472604418048) to go with one part of this. three guesses as to what the part is.

_ Thirteen _

The crush of the crowd is overwhelming and Yuuri has never been more glad for Minako’s tight and almost bruising grip on his arm— _ “I will not be telling your mother that I lost her baby boy, Yuuri, you hear me?” _ —than he is at this very moment as they make their way up the stands. He’d known that there would be a lot of people watching—it  _ is _ the World Championships, after all—but knowing about it and experiencing it in person are two very different things. 

Still, Yuuri thinks as the music starts and a familiar figure he’s only seen before on television screens and glossy posters glide onto the ice, he would brave any crowd if it means seeing Viktor Nikiforov  _ skate _ each and every time.

“Breathe, Yuuri,” Minako says from she’s sitting beside him, teasing, and Yuuri would pout if he really hadn’t forgotten how to breathe, his frantically beating heart seizing inside his chest as he watches Viktor melt into the song’s embrace and into an Ina Bauer.

As it stands, Yuuri has to take a deep, calming breath that quickly lodges itself in his throat when Viktor takes off—weightless, like he’s flying away—and lands a flawless triple axel. “He’s amazing,” he whispers, eyes never straying too far away. Caught like a moth to a flame. As if Viktor was the North Star and Yuuri is hopeless, helpless against his pull. “I’m going to skate on the same ice as him someday.” Yuuri says, promises, a truth that he’ll wear on his heart in the years to come.

“I know you will,” Minako says with a surety he can feel in his bones, before she smiles and hums, and adds with something like resignation and resolve lacing her tone, “I’m looking forward to it.”

  
  


_ Sixteen _

“So?” Yuuko asks, eyes wide and bright. “Do you like it?”

Never in Yuuri’s wildest dreams did he ever think that he would one day be in possession of  _ this _ poster. Namely, the very last poster that Viktor Nikiforov shot for before he cut his hair. It’s a limited edition, signed poster featuring Viktor in his Puck costume from his as-of-yet unbeaten Midsummer Night’s Dream inspired Free Skate. There had been a limited print run with only 250 copies sold worldwide, and Yuuri had trawled through skating forums and auction sites, got into countless fights, and even had the inn’s IP address banned, all in the hopes of getting his hands on one to no avail.

And now, now he’s holding a  _ framed copy _ in his hands.

Oh, Yuuri’s going to  _ cry. _

Like a baby.

He’s already sniffling before he knows it, hands shaking as his thumbs leave smudges on the cool glass. And then he’s crying in the middle of the Ice Castle, bursting into ugly tears, his face scrunched up.  

“Oh no,” he hears Yuuko say, hands rubbing gentle circles on his back while she leads him to sit down on one of the benches. “Do you have this one already?” She asks and Yuuri startles, tears ceasing as he hastily looks up to see dismay flit on her face. “We even asked Mari-nee to check—“

“No! No, it’s—I don’t have this yet.” And he probably never would if not for Yuuko and Takeshi, and whatever they did to get it. Yuuri just hopes it wasn’t anything illegal. “But Yuu-chan, this is limited edition!” 

From the wry smile on Yuuko’s face, she knows fully well just how  _ limited edition  _ the poster is. “Yeah, we know,” she says with the voice of someone who braved through the depths of various skating forums to find the one person willing to part with their Viktor Nikiforov poster (in exchange for a picture of Yuuri in his  _ The Matrix _ costume). “Getting it was kinda insane, but after you went and got silver at the Junior Grand Prix last year, we figured, well,  _ why not _ ?” 

A small part of Yuuri wants to say that he doesn’t deserve it, that the only reason why he even got silver in the first place is because of some fluke, but there’s something in Yuuko and Takeshi’s faces that tells him that if he even so much as imply anything of the sort, not only will he not hear the end of it from them, they’ll be telling on him to Minako-sensei too, so Yuuri wisely keeps his mouth shut.

However, it doesn’t save him from Takeshi’s one-armed hug and the hair ruffle that accompanies it. “But you better win gold this year, you hear me?” Takeshi says like it’s a matter of course, with a confidence and faith that Yuuri wishes he possesses. “And beat another one of Viktor’s world records too while you’re at it!”

“Takeshi!”

  
  


_ Nineteen _

“Can I see Vicchan again?”

Yuuri’s going to be late for practice if he doesn’t get a move on, but he can’t bring himself to get up and disentangle himself from the nest of his pillows and sheets. Can’t bring himself to end the call and move on with his life, when all he wants is to reach into his screen and bury his face into Vicchan’s coat, feel Vicchan’s whuffing breaths, and cradle him to his chest.

“ _ Sure, but he’s sleeping now, though _ ,” Mari warns, and Yuuri valiantly blinks away the tears, hugging his pillow closer, tighter; makes himself believe he’s not halfway across the world away from his family.

“That’s fine, I just—I just want to see him.”

“ _ Yeah, okay, hold on _ .” 

“Thanks, Mari-nee.”

“ _ Hey _ —” On the screen, his sister pauses, and for a quick moment, Yuuri sees the homesickness he feels translate into the yearning on Mari’s face. But it disappears as quickly as it appears. A trick of the light, a moment of weakness. “ _ You take care of yourself, okay? Call more often. Mom and Dad miss you. Vicchan misses you. _ ”

“Okay, neechan,” Yuuri says, even though he knows he won’t.

  
  


_ Twenty-two _

“ _ You’re welcome _ .”

To say that those two words, spoken in a vaguely familiar accent, are what Yuuri expects to hear at— _ oh dear gods, why _ —six o’clock in the morning on a  _ Saturday _ where  _ he doesn’t have morning training _ , would be a filthy, filthy lie. Because Yuuri doesn’t even want to be alive just yet, much less deal with mysterious phone calls. 

“ _ Happy birthday, Yuuri! _ ” The voice croons, and over the tinny reception, Yuuri can just make out faint meowing. Add that to the accent that’s becoming more and more familiar as Yuuri wakes up, he thinks he has a pretty good idea as to who decided to call him so early in the morning. “ _ I need you to check your email now because I just got you the best birthday gift that you will ever receive from anyone ever. _ ”

“Chris,” he grunts, flopping onto his back and regretting ever giving the other skater his phone number. 

“ _ The one and only, now hurry up! Time’s a ticking _ !”

Yuuri has half a mind to end the call and go back to sleep, but he has a feeling that Chris would either a) continue calling him nonstop until he picked up again or b) resort to drastic measures, neither of which he wants. So he drags himself to where his laptop is perched on the bedside table, wakes it up and opens his email where a new message awaits.

“If this is porn, I’m never talking to you again,” Yuuri mumbles as he waits for the video to load. 

Chris hums. “ _ Oh, trust me,  _ mon petit chou,  _ this is better than porn. _ ” 

And it is. Because if Yuuri isn’t mistaken, and he’s not, the video currently playing on his laptop is Viktor Nikiforov’s  _ Tom Ford _ commercial that was banned in the US for some dumb reason.

“Ohmygod,” Yuuri breathes out, scrambling for his glasses so he can appreciate the way Viktor’s wet shirt clings to his abs. “ _ Oh my god _ . How did you get--” Yuuri falters, almost swallowing his tongue as the camera pans  _ down, down, down _ and confirms what Yuuri has always known in his heart of hearts.

Viktor was  _ packing _ .

“ _ Viktor was worried about his hairline in this shoot and sent me the uncut version- _ -”

A hysterical laugh startles out of Yuuri at the word and he’s blurting out, “He’s definitely  _ cut _ though,” before he can even think about it, which has Chris laughing uproariously and a blush erupting on his cheeks.

“ _ Have a wonderful birthday, Yuuri. _ ”

  
  


_ Twenty-five _

Yuuri wakes to an empty bed and a missing fiancé.

Which isn’t really something of an uncommon occurrence because Viktor is a terrible, terrible morning person who wakes up with the sun like some kind of monster, while Yuuri firmly does not believe in mornings unless he really, really has to. And seeing as it’s only been a day after the last Grand Prix Final qualifier and he’s jetlagged as all hell from a nine hour flight from Jean-Lesage to Sheremetyevo, Yuuri has every right to not believe in mornings. 

Even so, the absence has Yuuri grumbling and reaching for his glasses, plopping them onto his face. Before he can do much more than prop himself up on his elbows, the door opens to admit Viktor, who’s carrying a tray piled high with breakfast things.

“You’re awake,” Viktor says like he can’t quite believe it, and even though it’s a perfectly valid reaction because Yuuri can’t quite believe that he’s actually awake at— _ oh god, why _ —nine in the morning on a rest day, he still pouts and scrunches his face up at Viktor in response.

“You were gone.” Yuuri means for it to sound petulant, but it ends up sounding plaintive instead, reeking a lot of the codependence Mari accuses them of.

Viktor melts, and Yuuri suddenly wants to build a home in Viktor’s chest and never leave. “And now I’m here with breakfast,” Viktor says, swooping in with a fleeting kiss to his forehead, the tray laid neatly in front of them. “Good morning, my sleeping beauty.”

There’s a multitude of things that Yuuri can say in response to that, but what comes out of his traitorous mouth instead is: “That’s bacon.” Because it’s still the middle of the skating season and there shouldn’t be any bacon on that plate.

“Well, it  _ is _ your birthday. And what your coach doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Viktor says, which makes absolutely no sense because Viktor is his coach, and—

Yuuri blinks. “Wait. That’s today?” He makes a grab for his phone, and yeah, okay, it’s the 29th, and Viktor is totally justified in giving him an aggrieved sigh for his troubles.

“Yuuri.”

“I thought it was tomorrow!” 

Shaking his head, Viktor leans in to brush their noses together and whispers, “Happy birthday, solnyshko.” 

And then Viktor smiles as if Yuuri really  _ is _ the sun and not a twenty-five year old mess of a person, and Yuuri has no other choice but to kiss him and keep on kissing him until they both run out of air, until all he knows is the shape of Viktor’s lips and the warmth of his mouth.

“So, is there anything in particular that you want—”

“What,” Yuuri interrupts with a giggle. “You mean you don’t have a ridiculous gift prepared for me already?” 

“Yuuri!” 

Which of course means that Viktor does. And Yuuri can expect to receive a ridiculously expensive piece of clothing like last year or, going from how Viktor has been secretly looking at property listings in Hasetsu whenever he thinks Yuuri isn’t looking, the title to a house.

“I dunno. Sleep?”

Viktor scowls. “ _ Yuuri _ .”

“There isn’t really anything in particular that I want.” Because there’s only ever been one thing that Yuuri wanted and always received on this special day, and the same goes for  _ this _ birthday and hopefully, all the birthdays after this one. 

Reaching up to cradle Viktor’s cheeks, Yuuri leans back close and says the only truth he knows right at this very moment: “I already have everything I could ever want right here.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [yuuri being junior world champion](https://twitter.com/alykapedia/status/979631399085817856) \+ knowing and being friends with chris are hills that i will die on and i will fuckin fITE anyone on this
> 
> if you enjoyed this pls water my crops by commenting and/or sharing this on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alykapedia/status/1086248543306698754) and/or [tumblr!!](http://alykapediaaa.tumblr.com/post/182109836451/ill-be-your-gift-alykapedia-yuri-on-ice)


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